Hitler's Spy (32 page)

Dicketts glanced at Robertson. ‘I’m sorry, but I disagree with this story entirely. I encountered Rantzau for the first time at the villa in Estoril. And if
I’d known anything about the Little Man getting found out I should never have gone into Germany.’

‘Well, I said it all right,’ the Little Man insisted.

‘And I’m quite convinced that the opposite is true, because on the last night you very nearly persuaded me not to go. You were very worried and shook my hand half a dozen times,
telling me what you thought of me, that you would look after me. You were wavering, in my opinion.’

‘No, I wasn’t. I said you were a very brave man.’

‘Well, in that case you were sending me to my death. You could have done nothing about it.’

‘No, I wasn’t. Gospel.’

‘That’s my candid opinion, Arthur. If I’d known that the whole case was blown to the Doctor then I should not have left.’

‘Dick, you knew perfectly well.’

‘You’re bluffing.’

‘You know bloody well I’m not bluffing.’

Dicketts rolled his eyes. ‘Bearing in mind your mentality, I’d say your memory seems awfully short.’

‘Ah – so you think I’m mental, like you tell Captain Robbie?’

‘Actually, I think you’re a maniac, Arthur. A maniac who lives in an atmosphere of mystery.’

Over the course of several hours and two dozen acetate discs the pair failed even to reach agreement on whether gin fizz or sherry had been consumed at the Metropole, let alone whether Snow had
sent Celery into Germany blindfold. ‘The riddle of the Sphinx and the doctrine of the Trinity are simple and straightforward affairs compared with this double enquiry,’ conceded
Masterman at length. ‘More than ever I am convinced that Snow is a case not for the Security Service, but for a brain specialist.’

Owens knew nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity, only artful triple-cross. With the peace plan in tatters, however, and his secret war lost, Agent Snow hardly needed a
brain specialist or any other doctor to confirm that he was living on borrowed time.

13

In an effort to discover whether Agent Snow was mad, let alone even genuinely ill, Robertson arranged for Owens to visit a specialist in Harley Street. ‘I remained in the
consulting room while the doctor put his initial questions,’ Tar remarked. ‘Snow made a terrific song and dance about his various ailments, saying that he was sick and had a pain in his
left side, and had been told by his local doctor he was suffering from a weak heart.’

Owens also boasted of being an alcoholic, blaming his poor memory and erratic behaviour on delirium tremens and a bottle of brandy a day. To this catalogue of woe was added the duodenal ulcer
first alleged after Operation Lamp. The Harley Street specialist ordered a stomach X-ray, but after Owens and Lily left the consulting room he told Tar that there was ‘really nothing wrong
with Snow at all. He had the constitution of an ox if he had been drinking as much as he said.’ The specialist added that in his opinion Snow was mentally sound, but very sly. ‘He
himself would not trust him further than he could see him. The local doctor should have a word said to him, as he had had his leg pulled.’

While Owens sank brandy, Walter Dicketts quaffed vintage champagne. During a break in the seemingly endless round of debriefs and boardings, Dicketts drove Kay to Southend-on-Sea for an
extravagant lunch at the Palace Hotel, lavishing two
whole pounds. No matter that he was £5,000 down, or that MI5 doubted large parts of his narrative: having merely
survived three weeks inside Germany was cause enough for celebration.

In order to secure a suitable table Dicketts masqueraded as Major Richard Blake, an identity dormant since 1931 when he had bounced a cheque at a garage in Taunton. Unfortunately the head waiter
at the Palace, Alfredo Carminati, knew Dicketts of old and alerted the police while the ‘major’ slipped out to visit his mother. ‘The waiter and the manager were aware of his
convictions,’ noted the local CID. ‘Much publicity had been given to the case in Hampshire when he was sentenced to eighteen months. In past criminal activities he frequently posed as
an army officer.’

A somewhat equivocal character, Carminati was also able to produce a pair of gold cufflinks given to him by Dicketts twelve years earlier. Southend Constabulary feared the onset of a crime spree
to rival Dick’s desperate capers a decade earlier, but quietly dropped their investigation after the matter came to the attention of MI5.

‘Celery entirely denied the accusation,’ wrote Tar’s new assistant, John Marriott. ‘His wife tried to book a table, but was told they were full and she must wait her
turn. Then the head waiter came forward and greeted him like an old friend, addressing him as Captain. Dicketts gave the name of Woods as a man of Southend who might have informed on him out of
malice.’

At least Agent Celery could afford to eat. For Jan Willem Ter Braak, the parachute agent still at large in Cambridge, the future looked decidedly bleak. After operating undetected for five
months, the mysterious V-man now found himself running short of cash, and unable to buy food without an up-to-date ration book. With each day that passed his situation grew ever more desperate.
Finally, on 29 March, the day before fake Major
Blake dined in style in Southend, the bogus Dutch scientist quit his lodgings in Montague Road, owing rent arrears and with
less than two shillings in his pocket. At the railway station Ter Braak deposited his suitcase transmitter in the left-luggage office, the method of disposal prescribed during training for
Operation Lena, then solemnly retraced his steps towards the city centre.

On the morning of Tuesday, 1 April, an air-raid warden made a gruesome discovery in one of the public shelters on Christ’s Pieces, a small park close by Emmanuel College, criss-crossed by
pathways and planted with ornamental trees. Sprawled untidily on the earthen floor was the emaciated body of a middle-aged man, neatly dressed in an overcoat, pinstripe suit and black homburg hat,
his hands sheathed in leather gloves, his horn-rimmed spectacles knocked askew by a pistol shot to the head. Police were slow to investigate, suspecting a macabre April Fool. By midday, however, a
gaggle of press reporters had converged on the scene, word having spread that the body was that of a Nazi spy.

‘The question of tightening up regulations will have to be gone into very seriously,’ wrote Liddell, profoundly vexed on learning that Ter Braak might easily have been arrested
before Christmas. ‘In this case the police were entirely to blame. The joke of it is that Ter Braak has been living within 50 yards of our RSLO in Cambridge.’

The following day copies of the
Cambridge News
were hastily withdrawn after an urgent call from the Ministry of Information. For MI5, the discovery of the dead Lena agent was profoundly
worrying. On the one hand, detailed technical examination of his transmitter tended to suggest that it had not been used, while his ID papers, based on serials provided by Snow, were reliably
flawed. On the other, his lifeless corpse raised the dread spectre of a parallel Abwehr network, as yet undiscovered. As it was, John Masterman could only speculate on ‘how much more happy
and more useful’ Ter Braak’s career might have been within the bosom of B1A.

As if in answer to these prayers, within a week two young Norwegians named Glad and Moe paddled ashore on the Moray Firth, only to be captured immediately and turned as
JEFF and MUTT. Neither carried papers based on material provided by Snow, and were straightforward sabotage agents with no connection to Lena or Ritter. Nevertheless, Arthur Owens sensed danger and
called an urgent meeting with Robertson to discuss the threat of violent assassination.

‘From remarks made by the barman at The Otter it appears that a number of customers have formed the impression that people living at Homefields are working for British intelligence, and
that there is a secret wireless transmitter at the address. Snow was in a frightful state about this. He said that the game was up, that he and all the people working with him were blown sky high,
and that his life was in jeopardy along with those of his wife and child.’

Robertson argued that the Abwehr were unlikely to bother sending over an agent just to bump Owens off. ‘He was sent home still protesting, and I was very strongly of the impression that
the whole of the story from Snow’s point of view was in the nature of a smokescreen.’

Or Zeppelin shells. Tar’s diagnosis was subsequently confirmed by the Harley Street specialist. The X-rays taken of Owens’ stomach revealed no trace of duodenal ulcers, nor any other
internal trouble. ‘Apart from rather high blood pressure his health is good, and the doctor was unable to believe that Snow had been drinking to anything like the extent he would have us
believe. He added that the local doctor in Surrey now says Snow is probably suffering from venereal disease, and has been sent up to St Thomas’ Hospital for examination.’

Operation Legover, it seemed, had exacted a terrible toll. Syphilis was not schizophrenia, however, and no psychiatry would be required. ‘The doctor gave it as his opinion that Snow was a
consummate liar, and could not be trusted in anything he
said. He had no doubt he would try to deceive us in any way which suited his purpose.’

A right royal raspberry.

Kein glas bier.

On the morning of Thursday, 10 April, as Germany steamrollered Greece and the Balkans in support of another woeful Italian effort, the Twenty Committee elected to terminate Snow. ‘The
facts appeared to contradict one another to an astonishing extent,’ sighed its chairman, John Masterman. ‘If indeed Owens had revealed all, why was Dicketts not painfully executed by
the Germans, unless he had gone over to the enemy? If, again, all had been revealed, why did the Germans present Owens with £10,000? The fact that Doctor Rantzau wishes to keep the party
alive is a strong argument for closing it down.’

The Little Man was a busted flush, and had entirely exhausted his usefulness to B1A. Shortly before ten o’clock Agent Snow was brought before Robertson and Masterman, with Guy
Liddell’s deputy, Dick White, sitting in to provide an impartial view. As Snow’s long-suffering case officer, it fell to Robertson to deliver the
coup de grâce
.

‘We’ve come to the conclusion that you’re of no further use to us, Snowy. So far as you and your skin are concerned, we propose you send over a message tomorrow to say that you
are exceedingly ill, that your nerve has gone, and that you are not prepared to go on with the game.’

For the first and last time in his picaresque espionage career, talkative Arthur Owens was lost for words.

‘You should also ask the other side what to do with your transmitter,’ Tar continued. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Dandy,’ Owens muttered quietly.

‘On your rendering of the facts, Rantzau must know exactly why you’ve sent such a message.’

‘Quite, quite. I follow you.’

‘And that will throw the ball into his court.’

‘Exactly. Quite.’

‘So, that’s your situation Arthur. Case closed, game over.’

Owens glanced from face to face. ‘Can’t I do anything to help this country at all? Hell, I’ve got to earn a living.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘I’ll do anything. I’m not a fool, I’ve had a good education.’

‘And yet you’ve been tremendously idle,’ countered Masterman. ‘You could have kept on a job with Expanded Metal.’

‘I didn’t want any complications in that way.’

‘So you did nothing for ten months except live off an enormous salary that makes a Cabinet Minister look stupid at the present rate of taxation.’

‘Quite.’

‘You see our difficulty,’ said Robertson. ‘They know we control your transmitter. There’s no more value in this particular show.’

‘I shouldn’t look at it that way at all,’ replied Owens, rallying slightly.

‘Then how
do
you look at it?’

‘The Doctor seems to think I’m in an ideal position. They can send in people by this motor-launch business, and I can go round anywhere with the transmitter and send all the dope
over to Germany.’

‘But Rantzau knows that your set is under control.’

‘Not the new one, no. I’ve got a free hand. It’s a wonderful scheme.’

Tar rolled his eyes. ‘Just like all the other wonderful schemes the Doctor puts up which never come off. It might be an excellent plan from his point of view, but not from ours. He must
think the whole of British intelligence are saps.’

‘Well, he hasn’t a very good impression of your people, no.’

‘You’ve had plenty of time to think about all this, Snowy. Do you still maintain you told Dicketts that the game was blown before he went into Germany?’

‘Gospel.’

‘Well, we prefer to believe Dick. On its worst construction, you knowingly sent a friend to his death.’

Owens shook his head. ‘I did nothing of the kind. Döbler knows it, and Döbler wasn’t tight. He heard every word of it.’

‘So who was tight? You?’

‘We both were, I suppose.’

‘Was that not a highly treacherous act?’ pressed Masterman. ‘You not telling Dicketts?’

‘I’m positive I told him.’

‘Definitely?’

‘One hundred per cent.’

A year earlier, Robertson had experienced the same feelings of revulsion and personal affront when Snow played fast and loose with McCarthy’s neck. Unlike his predecessors, Peal and
Hinchley-Cooke, Tar strove always to extend the human touch towards Owens, only to have his fingers burned time and again. As yet, however, MI5 knew nothing of Owens’ dealings with Germany
over radar, and did not consider Agent Snow to be a major traitor. For now, the last salient issue to be resolved was Snow’s allegation that Rantzau had accused him of operating under British
control. Owens, in turn, had confessed without demur.

‘You exercised the poorest judgement in giving in so easily,’ Robertson said pleasantly. ‘It might merely have been a routine question meant to catch you out.’

‘I don’t know about that. See, this has happened before. The first time he had proof in black and white.’